Ashes
by Botanical
Summary: When Petunia receives the letter turning her down from Hogwarts, her future as a witch is over. Only this time, the letter turns to ash in her hands. AU


I've been sitting on this for more than half a year. Critiques are welcome.

Petunia and Lily are twins in this one, but it's not explicitly stated so, do with that what you will.

* * *

Petunia had been performing a stake out by the mail slot for almost a week now, camping herself in a chair she had dragged from the living room with her favorite novel and a cup of tea that her mother would bring her from time to time. When asked about her sudden fascination with the mail, Petunia would mutter some fashion of "waiting for something" and never anything specific.

Whenever Lily left the house to play with that boy down the street, Severus, she would look back at Petunia with worrying eyes. Petunia would just look back down at her book.

If only it would capture her interest like it did before. The only books Petunia had any interest in now were the ones that Lily brought back with her from that magical alleyway. That night, Petunia and Lily huddled under a blanket and used a flashlight to scan through the various textbooks, ooh-ing and ah-ing at the magical spells detailed.

"Do some magic, Lily," Petunia pleaded after they had flipped halfway through the _Standard Book of Spells._Lily bit her lip. "I'm not allowed to do magic yet."

"Just once won't hurt," Petunia said. "This one looks easy enough," She pointed to a spell that made light sprout from the end of a wand.

"Okay, but just once," Lily pulled the blanket off them both and took her wand out of its box. She reread the directions, before raising her wand in the air. "_Lumos!_" Nothing happened. Lily looked down at her wand with disappointment.

Petunia reached for it. "Let me try," She grabbed a hold of the wand, marveling at it for a moment, before raising it into the air. "_Lumos_\- ow!" Petunia dropped the wand onto the bed, which glowed red where Petunia had grasped it. The wand had burned her hand.

"Are you okay?" Lily gasped, taking Petunia's hand and turning it palm-up. Her hand looked fine, but Petunia could still feel a tingling sensation.

"I'm fine," She had said while blinking back tears, clenching her hand closed. Lily went to close the textbooks they had sprawled on the floor while Petunia slipped under her covers. The two sisters lay in their respective beds in strained silence.

Finally, Lily spoke up, "I'm sorry."

Petunia bunched her blanket in her fists.

"For what?" She grumbled, but Lily didn't answer. It wasn't until she woke up in the morning did Petunia ever knew she fell asleep.

After that, Petunia decided to send a letter of complaint to that magical school, Hogwarts. There was no way that her sister was magical and she wasn't, it just wasn't fair if that was the case. She wrote about the wand incident in her letter; the wand did do something magical when she held it, which was more than what Lily did!

The mail slot suddenly flapped open and Petunia leapt to her feet as she saw the stack of letters spill onto the floor. She gathered them up and quickly scanned them, looking for one with a wax seal and with the address written in calligraphy. Petunia frowned when all of them were plain and addressed to one of her parents with just a boring stamp in the when she was about to leave, the mail slot came to life again and a lone letter fell to the floor. It had a wax seal. Petunia dropped the other envelopes to the ground to pick it up. When she flipped it over, the calligraphy addressed the letter to her.

Petunia held the letter to her chest and closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. _Don't get your hopes up._

She scaled the stairs to her and Lily's room and locked the door, gently placing the letter on her desk. She frowned at a slight wrinkle at the corner of the envelope and fiddled with it, trying to straighten it out when her eyes again catches on her name and Petunia is almost hypnotized.

The scrawl was different from Lily's letter; Lily's name was printed with a sturdy hand, succinct and to the point. Petunia's name was written with loops and swirls, and Petunia spent a good moment tracing the way the cross stroke of the "t" dipped and curved over the rest of her name. Prying her eyes from her own name, Petunia noted that it was sent by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, which nearly spanned the entire top of the envelope. Petunia flipped it over, and thumbed the red wax seal for a moment before carefully prying it open.

The folded paper inside slid out with ease, and Petunia held her breath as she slowly unfolded the letter, carefully as to not to skim over the words before she was ready. Then, after taking a deep breath, she began to read over the fancy script.

_Dear Miss Petunia Evans,_

_I am sorry to inform you that_-

Petunia dropped the letter onto her desk to bury her face into her pillow. She breathed heavily for a long moment, before picking herself up to continue reading the letter. Maybe there was a "but" or a "however" in there that would be Petunia's saving grace.

There wasn't.

She stood there clutching the letter, the words becoming blurrier and blurrier until Petunia realized she was crying. She wiped her eyes with her arm, gritting her teeth and wrinkling the paper. Just when she was about to rip the letter in half, it crumbled in her hands as a fine, dark dust, as if someone had managed to burn the paper without using fire. Petunia blinked, her tears forgotten.

_They can't even let me keep a letter? _Petunia thought furiously to herself, letting the remains fall to the floor and wiping her hands on her dress. When the ashes wouldn't come off, she unlocked the door and walked over to the bathroom to wash her hands.

"Petunia?" Lily appeared at the top of the stairs. Petunia kept her gaze on her hands under the running water, hoping that her eyes didn't look red and puffy. "Are you okay?"

"Why do you care?" Petunia shot out, and out of the corner of her eyes she could see her sister flinch. "It's, it's nothing." She said, softer this time.

"Well, lunch is ready," Lily said, and Petunia listened to her footsteps walking back down the stairs before Petunia looked up. She rubbed her eyes again, before splashing water on her face.

Petunia returned to her room and spotted the envelope that held the once intact letter, and reached over to crumple the remaining paper and toss it into the bin. She lay face down on her bed and tried not to scream.

The next few days blurred together for Petunia as the only things she did were ignore Lily for as much as possible. Lily started to play with Severus for longer than usual, but in the back of her mind Petunia couldn't really blame her.

Petunia knew she was being bitter and petty. It wasn't Lily's fault that she was a witch and Petunia wasn't. She supposed it was kind of like why Lily had red hair while Petunia and their parents didn't, something that made Lily special. Petunia still wished that she was the special one, the one with red hair, the one with magic.

A week had passed since Petunia received the letter. Since she and Lily share the same room, bedtime was a tense affair; well, at least for Petunia. She was lying awake at some ungodly hour in the morning, listening to Lily's even breathing mixed in with her own.

A light tapping on her bedside window brought Petunia out of her stupor, and she tentatively sat up and pulled back the drapes. She yelped when the round face of an owl peered back at her, and she looked over her shoulder to see that Lily was still asleep. Petunia turned back and glared accusingly at the owl, who just tiled its head and nipped at the window frame. That's when Petunia spotted the letter tied to the owl's leg.

For a split second, Petunia considered shooing the owl away and not telling Lily, but quickly pushed that thought out of her head. Lily would be devastated if she found out about a letter she didn't receive and subsequently couldn't go to Hogwarts.

Petunia opened the window and the owl flew in with a loud rustle of feathers. She untied the letter from the owl's leg, who left as quickly as it came. Petunia sighed, reaching over to close the window, her eyes skimming over the lettering on the front.

She stopped cold when she saw her name printed on the envelope.

Petunia leaped from her bed and flipped the light switch, which immediately filled the room with warm light. Blinking rapidly, she brought the letter close to her face and realized that it looked exactly like Lily's letter, with the only difference the name printed on the front. Petunia's hands shook as she fumbled with the wax seal, nearly tearing the envelope in half in her haste.

_Dear Ms. Petunia Evans,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted-_

With those few words Petunia closed her eyes and pressed the letter to her chest, taking in a deep breath before letting it out in a squeal. She turned around and leaped onto Lily's bed. If her sister wasn't awake already, then she was definitely awake now.

"Lily, Lily!" The aforementioned sister rubbed her eyes and groaned a sleepy affirmative. "Look! Look at this!" Petunia shoved the letter into her sister's face, who squinted at the words. She watched as Lily's face changed from confusion to recognition to delight, and her sister let out an identical squeal as she tackled Petunia with a hug.

"We're both going to Hogwarts!" Lily exclaims and Petunia laughs for the first time in days.

Lily went with her and their parents to Diagon Alley. Their arms were filled with textbooks before they knew it, and Petunia marveled at the place that she had only dreamed about before. The last place they visited had "OLLIVANDERS" printed on the store front. One look at the glass display case told her what the store was about.

Lily opened the door and Petunia hesitantly followed her inside. The store was small and cramped, though Petunia gaped at the tall shelves that reached the ceiling and held long and narrow boxes of which she could only assume contained wands.

Ollivander greeted her with zeal, and Petunia stood still as a measuring tape zipped around in the air, taking measurements of her body as it went. Ollivander climbed up a ladder to reach a box near the top and handed her a long and thin wand. Petunia simply stared at it, and only took it in her hand when Lily nudged her.

"Give it a try," Ollivander said, and Petunia focused on the wand and gave it a tentative and small swish. No pain, and Petunia is relieved until she saw Ollivander shake his head. Petunia's vision went blurry as she tried her best to hold back tears, her mind whirring with the possibility that the letter could have been a joke, a tasteless prank. Just when she was about to run out, Ollivander handed her another wand, and Petunia blinked. Lily gently touched Petunia's arm.

"I had to go through about five wands before I got mine," Lily said. Petunia nodded with her gaze still on the wand, knowing that if she made eye contact now she would probably burst into tears then and there. She rubbed her eyes and took the second wand.

When she swished it this time, a stack of wand boxes toppled to the ground. Ollivander waved away her apology, fetching another wand for her to try. The pattern went on for a couple minutes, bringing back Petunia's worries. What if she never finds her wand? What if this was all still part of the prank?

Petunia took the latest wand presented to her and gave it a swish, bracing herself, but her eyes widened as the wand tip let out a gentle trail of embers that burned out to ash as they fluttered to the floor. Petunia looked up and saw Lily beaming.

When they got back home, Lily insisted they meet up with Severus. Petunia begrudgingly agreed, only because she was in a good mood and because she wanted to see the look on his face.

He did not disappoint.

"You?!" Severus exclaimed as Petunia smugly showed him her new wand.

"Isn't this great, Sevy? We'll all be going to Hogwarts together!" Lily's words had Severus changing his tune immediately. Petunia rolled her eyes as she watched them chatter and silently vowed to keep that greasy-haired boy away from her sister.

That night, Petunia and Lily huddled under a blanket and tried out the spells again, this time with Petunia using her own wand. Nothing happened, though they still stayed up until they couldn't keep their eyes open any longer.

"I'm sorry," Petunia mumbled, half-awake, but was too far gone to hear a reply.

On September 1st, Petunia and Lily stood on Platform ¾ together. With her suitcase in one hand and holding onto Lily's hand with the other, Petunia took her first step onto the train.

She was going to Hogwarts.

* * *

I'm not continuing this just cause I'm lazy aha, even though i have a lot of thoughts on how the story changes because of Petunia. Anyways, I just feel like I have to explain some things a little? Idk but basically Petunia's first letter (the letter rejecting her from Hogwarts) was sent by regular mail because she's still technically a Muggle at that point, so Muggle mail it is for her. Her Hogwarts acceptance letter was by owl because 1. Petunia already knows about magic through Lily and 2. it's already pretty late in the year and whoever takes care of the invitations decided not to risk muggle mail n stuff. Thanks for reading!


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